| Citation |
BEP(F.750.013
12 Mar 1750:41 (761)
London. . . Oct. 24. . . The subject of the French players
having almost engross'd the present conversation of the
town, it is thought proper to submit the following queries
to the consideration of the publick.
Whether the French, by way of satisfaction for sending
their last company of mimical mendicants back, in so
unpolite a manner, may not, by some secret article in the
late glorious peace, have expressly stipulated for a free
settlement of one of their stage colonies in this Kingdom
for the future ?
Whether to remove any uneasiness our ministry may have
express'd concerning Fort St. George; the theatrical heroes
may not have been sent as hostages, for the bonne foi of the
grand monarque ?
Whether, if either be the case, any insult offer'd these
state strollers may not induce our neighbours to explain it
into an infraction of the peace, and think themselves at
liberty to dispence with every other article of it, so
peculiarly negotiated for the glory, as well as interest, of
Great Britain ?
Whether, in sending one French company hither on the eve
of a war, was an insult on the nation, it is not equally
such to send another before the completion of a peace; and
may it not puzzle posterity to account for English hostages
being in a French court, and French players in an English
one, at the same point of time ?
Whether by some luck cartel we may not, for once, have
over-reach'd the French by obtaining this useful body of
people, in exchange for a useless body of our seamen sent
thither ?
Whether we may not soon expect a like troop of Spanish
comedians, in return for our manufacturers lately exported
into that Kingdom ?
Whether, if a body of English officers should appear arm'd
in support of this theatrical state, it would not look like
dragooning us into a French interest, and might not be
deem'd enlisting in foreign service ?
Whether the ligislature did not, a few years since, think
it necessary to limit the number of playhouses, altho' the
private fortune of one of our own countrymen was sacrific'd
to that regulation ?
Whether licensing these foreign vagabonds is not then
directly opposing the sense of the legislature, enriching a
foreigner on the spoils of a native, and may not in a
literal sense of the words be deem'd----- Ludere cum
sacris?"
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